Mercy Cherono accidentally stepped on the inside edge of the track rail with only 100 meters to go, which left her losing both her balance and chance of winning a second gold medal in the women’s 5,000m race after her 3,000m success on Monday at the World Junior Championship in Moncton, Canada.
Cherono had fought a great battle with eventual winner Genzebe Dibaba of Ethiopia after the pair got clear of the field with seven-and-a-half laps of the race to run and made her costly mistake as they battled neck-and-neck down the home straight.
The Kenyan tried to recover her balance, but her Ethiopian rival – a silver medallist two years ago – was in full stride stretching out to lower the championship record by 13 seconds with a time of 15:08.06 and land her country its first gold of the championship.
While bidding to become only the second woman to score a 3,000m/5,000m success and follow in the footsteps of Ethiopian Meseret Defar eight years ago, Cherono finished second in 15:09.19.
Her team mate, Alice Aprot, clinched the bronze medal, running a personal best time of 15:17.39. The results leaves Kenya still perched at the top of the medal standings with two gold, a silver and two bronze medals.
Kept wanting to push me
“The race wasn’t bad but she (Dibaba) kept wanting to push me. It’s not how I wanted to finish. I stumbled and it cost me the race,” said Cherono.
But it was good for Aprot, the younger sister of World Cross Country champion Joseph Ebuya, who claimed the bronze. Tejitu Daba, in fourth, set a national junior record of 15:29.78 for Bahrain while Ayuko Suzuki (15:47.36) of Japan was fifth.
Barefoot
“I’m used to running barefoot so I don’t know how to run with spikes, but it’s not bad,” said Aprot. “15:17 is my personal best so I’m very happy.”
Cherono and Aprot were the early leaders, along with Dibaba. Aprot was the first leader and she pulled the pack through a 3:01.66 first kilometre of the race.
The pace slowed slightly in the second kilometre, reached in 6:03.69, but by then the field had been strung out and Nawowuna was leading a pack of seven, including both Kenyans, both Ethiopians, Daba of Bahrain, Yeum of Korea and Izawa of Japan.
Cherono moved to the front after the 2000m split and thinned the pack even more, dropping everyone but Daba, then by 3km Daba was also falling back and Nawowuna was back into third. The battle for the win was clearly between Cherono and Dibaba.
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